Building drought resilience by scaling out farming practices that will enhance the productive capacity of sandy soil landscapes

Project Summary

This project aimed to enhance the drought resilience of farmers who manage 3 million hectares of sandy soils across the low-medium rainfall landscape of southeast Australia. This has been achieved through the adoption of practices that enhance the productive capacity of sandy soils by overcoming constraints including water repellence and compacted layers, that prevent both root growth, access to moisture and nutrients. Practices proven to work in small scale trials were scaled out at 16 demonstration sites to build farmers’ confidence across an extensive landscape of the Eyre Peninsula, Upper Yorke Peninsula, Mallee and Southeast regions. The sites were monitored throughout the project with data collected to determine the effectiveness of different practices.

16 case studies were developed to document outcomes from sites. The project engaged directly with 1638 people attending 52 extension events including Sandy Soil Masterclasses, crop walks, field days, research updates and workshops across the project area. Indirect engagement occurred with 79,795 people across the project footprint via 56 communications materials, including research articles, digital platforms (Agriknow, Soils Hub), various social media platforms and pages, e-newsletters and media articles.

The project was delivered by a consortium of grower groups (Ag Innovation & Research Eyre Peninsula, Mallee Sustainable Farming, MacKillop Farm Management Group and Northern Sustainable Soils) in conjunction with delivery partners PIRSA, Uni SA, Frontier Farming Systems, Trengove Consulting, Soil Function Consulting, CSIRO (technical support, masterclass delivery), Alluvio Pty Ltd (case study development) and Coutts J&R (monitoring and evaluation). The project was also supported with a cash contribution from Grains Research & Development Corporation to broaden the reach of the extension program.

The project was managed by Ag Innovation & Research Eyre Peninsula, hosting bi-monthly online project team meetings to keep everyone updated and on track, as well as annual face to face meetings to share results and build capacity within the project team. This project also collaborated with two other Future Drought Fund projects: Building drought resilience with landscape scale remediation of saline land (Soil and Landscape program) and Robust ground cover to enable resilient low rainfall mixed farms (FDF Innovation program) to reduce duplication and maximise resources.

In terms of project effectiveness, 85% of all participants indicated they had changed the way they manage their farming practices to better manage sandy soils. Farmers indicated that many of their sandy soil constraints had improved or stopped getting worse after participating in the project. Examples provided included changes to delving, deep ripping, and liming rates or techniques that resulted in increased yields and improved ground cover. Farm trials/demos were the most used and useful source of information for farmers, with 100% agreeing (85% strongly agreeing) that viewing on-farm trials and demos in their neighbourhood is essential in evaluating and adopting new practices. All farmers agreed that the on-farm research linked to this project seemed to offer some practical solutions for managing low production sandy soils on their farm, and all agreed there is significant opportunity to better manage soils on their farms in future. The project engagement with farmers through field days/sticky beak days was seen as a highly effective method of providing information. The networking opportunities provided by the project were valued, with most farmers finding the information they had gained from other farmers/neighbours and advisers highly useful, with 85% agreeing (23% strongly agreeing) that talking to other farmers about new farming practices is one of the most reliable sources of information.